FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 3425/18
Zoran ZEČIĆ
against Croatia
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 29 March 2022 as a Committee composed of:
Péter Paczolay, President,
Alena Poláčková,
Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 3425/18) against Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 10 January 2018 by a Croatian national, Mr Zoran Zečić, who was born in 1967 and lives in Zagreb (“the applicant”) who was represented by Ms Vlahinić, a lawyer practising in Zagreb;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the allegedly unreasonable costs of civil proceedings the applicant was ordered to pay to an insurance company. On 1 June 2001 the applicant brought a civil action in damages against an insurance company in the Zagreb Municipal Civil Court seeking 35,000 Croatian kunas (HRK; approximately 4,700 euros (EUR)) in respect of non-pecuniary damage for injuries he had sustained in a car accident.
2. When the respondent pointed out that an out-of-court settlement in the amount of HRK 4,242 prevented the applicant from claiming further non‑pecuniary damage, on 1 July 2003 the applicant brought another civil action against the same insurance company seeking partial annulment of the settlement, without specifying the amount of the subject-matter in dispute.
3. The court decided to join the two sets of proceedings. Following the conclusions of a medical expert opinion, the applicant reduced his initial claim for compensation to HRK 16,470 (approximately EUR 2,225).
4. On 30 April 2013 the court awarded the applicant HRK 9,470 (approximately EUR 1,280) in damages and HRK 7,070 (approximately EUR 950) in costs. At the same time, it dismissed the remainder of the applicant’s compensation claim as well as his (second) claim for partial annulment of the out-of-court settlement (see paragraph 2 above). The court further ordered the applicant to pay the respondent HRK 20,314 (approximately EUR 2,745) in costs of proceedings. In doing so, the court assessed the value of the claim for annulment of the settlement to HRK 50,000 (approximately EUR 6,750) in line with section 40 of the Civil Procedure Act.
5. The applicant’s subsequent appeal and his constitutional complaint were dismissed. The final decision of the Constitutional Court was served on his representative on 12 July 2017.
6. The applicant complained that the excessive amount of costs of the proceedings he had been ordered to pay had violated his right of access to court and his property rights. He relied on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
7. The general principles on access to court in costs-of-proceedings cases have been summarised in Čolić v. Croatia (no. 49083/18, §§ 39-44, 18 November 2021). In that case the Court affirmed that unreasonable costs of proceedings may raise an issue under the Convention primarily in cases in which a party succeeded with the grounds of the civil claim, but not with its entire amount. The Court has also held that in such cases weighty reasons would need to be put forward to justify the fact that the costs of proceedings were equal or higher to the plaintiff’s financial award in the case (see Čolić, cited above, § 46).
8. In the present case, the applicant had instituted two sets of civil proceedings against a private insurance company, both related to damage resulting from a car accident. The domestic court joined the two sets of proceedings and ultimately granted his first civil claim in part, awarding him a certain amount of non-pecuniary damages. At the same time, the court dismissed his second civil action for annulment of an out-of-court settlement in its entirety.
9. When calculating the costs of the proceedings, the domestic courts noted that the applicant did not specify the value of his second civil claim (paragraph 2 above), as required by the Civil Procedure Act. Therefore, the statutory amount of HRK 50,000 as provided for in section 40(5) of that Act was to be taken as the value of the subject-matter in dispute in those proceedings. The foregoing resulted in the applicant’s overall success in the proceedings being rather low and, consequently, him having to reimburse the respondent some HRK 20,000 in costs, whereas he had been awarded some HRK 9,500 in damages and HRK 7,000 for his costs (see paragraph 4 above).
10. The Government claimed that this state of affairs had been the consequence of the applicant’s failure to respect the rules of civil proceedings, which had been well-known and foreseeable to him at the material time. The Court needs to verify whether such conduct constituted a weighty reason justifying the fact that the applicant was ordered to reimburse the costs of the respondent at a higher amount than he had been awarded in damages (compare Čolić, cited above, §§ 46, 49 and 59).
11. The Court has already reviewed the system of determining the value of the subject-matter in dispute in civil proceedings, albeit in a slightly different context (see Zubac v. Croatia [GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 102 and following, 5 April 2018). According to the rules of civil procedure in Croatia, it is the plaintiff’s obligation to indicate in the statement of claim the value of the subject matter of the dispute (section 186 of the Civil Procedure Act). Should the plaintiff fail to do so before the respondent began litigating the case, the first-instance court shall quickly and conveniently determine the value of the subject-matter in dispute (section 40(4) of the Civil Procedure Act). Should the first-instance court fail to establish the value of the subject matter in the aforementioned manner, the value of the subject-matter in dispute shall be considered to be set at HRK 50,000 (section 40(5) of the Civil Procedure Act).
12. While it is true that, contrary to the requirements of section 40(4) of the Civil Procedure Act, the first-instance court had failed to determine the value of the subject matter of the dispute in the applicant’s case, the Court notes that it had in the first place been the applicant’s obligation to specify the value of the subject-matter in dispute in his statement of claim. However, the applicant, who was from the very outset represented by a lawyer in the domestic proceedings, failed to demonstrate the necessary diligence in determining the value of the subject-matter in dispute and the court’s subsequent omission to establish the value of the subject-matter in dispute could thus not justify the applicant’s initial failure to do so in his statement of claim. Moreover, given that the said error had been mainly and objectively imputable to the applicant, the adverse consequences of that error – such as the obligation to pay a higher amount of costs of the proceedings – necessarily rests on the applicant (see, mutatis mutandis, Zubac, cited above, § 121).
13. Finally, the Court reiterates that the applicant succeeded with the grounds of his first civil claim and with 57% of its amount, whereas his second civil claim for annulment of the settlement had been dismissed in its entirety. In such circumstances, and having regard to the above, the Court holds that ordering the applicant to bear the costs of the respondent’s representation in the proceedings at issue did not amount to a disproportionate restriction of his right of access to a court or impose a disproportionate burden on his property rights (contrast Čolić, cited above, § 59, and Klauz v. Croatia, no. 28963/10, § 97, 18 July 2013).
14. This application is therefore manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 April 2022.
Liv Tigerstedt Péter Paczolay
Deputy Registrar President